School year could be cut by 20 days if tax initiative fails; education officials say reducing teaching days would be last resort

Humboldt County school districts will be able to consider slashing up to 20 days from the school year if California voters do not approve Gov. Jerry Brown's proposed tax measure in November, the county superintendent of schools said.

Districts can already reduce the number of teaching days from 180 to 175 a year, according to Humboldt County Superintendent of Schools Garry Eagles. If the governor's proposed tax initiative fails, K-12 schools, colleges and universities will face nearly $6 billion in cuts, which may result in some local districts looking to cut the number of teaching days down to 160, he said.

Under that scenario, parents could see this school year end in late May, Eagles said. In the future, school years may start after Labor Day and end up finishing in early to mid-May, he said.

Officials at Eureka City Schools and McKinleyville Union School District said reducing the number of teaching days by such a drastic amount is something they haven't considered.

Taking 20 days off the school calendar would be an option of last resort for most districts, said Eureka City Schools Interim Superintendent Lee Ann Lanning.

"That option would be available for those districts that have the fiscal need to explore utilizing them," Lanning said. "I would hazard a guess that most districts would prefer not to have to."

Eureka City Schools has maintained a school year of 180 days, Lanning said.

"It is not something we are considering," Lanning said. "We have not even looked at that five-day option."

Officials with the McKinleyville Union School District haven't considered reducing its school year by 20 days, said Superintendent Michael Davies-Hughes. Reducing that many days would require difficult negotiations with the district's collective bargaining units, he said.

The district has reduced its teaching days to 175, using the five additional days for professional development, Davies-Hughes said. He added that the district has already made cuts to its 2012-13 budget that will allow it to meet expenses even if the tax initiative fails.

The cuts include leaving empty positions vacan,t and the district's three school site councils have also discussed using program funds to help pay for teachers' salaries, Davies-Hughes said.

"It's not realistic for us to consider that for next year," he said. "In the years following, if we consider this downward slope of education funding, then of course we would have to look at all opportunities to increase revenue and decrease costs."

Randall Perry, the California Teachers Association regional representative, said he has spoken with 10 to 15 school districts throughout Humboldt County. Most have agreed to keep the reduction of school days on the table as a contingency if the tax initiative fails, he said.

If the number of school days decreases to 160, teachers could end up losing retirement pay, Perry said. The State Teachers Retirement System agreed that districts could reduce the number of days to 175 and teachers would still be considered for a full year of service credit, he said. Anything below that number could reduce the credit.

"Teachers are going to want to be satisfied that the district has made other cuts so that the reduction of school days is a last resort," he said.

School districts also don't like to reduce teaching days because of the disruption in the continuity of instruction, Davies-Hughes said. Students that aren't involved in summer school programs often lose the knowledge base they have developed, he said. It takes a while for students to get that knowledge back.

"If you extend that time that students have been out of school by another 20 days or up to a month, the impact would be very significant," Davies-Hughes said, adding that it would be harder for students to meet the state's academic standards.

"Being held accountable to those standards and losing the opportunity to provide necessary time to deliver the instruction for those standards doesn't make a lot of sense," he said.